


A World Torn Asunder

by ForeignNebula



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-14 18:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3420887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForeignNebula/pseuds/ForeignNebula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Some people are born to greatness, others have greatness thrust upon them. Be it by Divine intervention, or being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Either of which is totally irrelevant because that is exactly what happened to me and my brother; the two of us minding our own business when everything just went to Hell in a hand-basket.' - excerpt from the Inquisitors Official Autobiography.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I got sucked in to the world that is Dragon Age and have abandoned all other stories for a while, while I focus on this. I hope I do it justice though! Enjoy!

**A World Torn Asunder**

_Some people are born to greatness, other have greatness thrust upon them. By divine intervention or by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, is totally irrevelant._

_It is irrelevent because that is exactly what happened to me and my brother; the two of us just minding out own business when everything went to Hell in a handbasket._

_Our tale is a fantastical one, bordering on outright impossibility, but when you have seen the things that we have, the realm of impossible suddenly becomes that much more real, and true and terrifying._

-          _Excerpt taken from the Inquisitor’s Official Autobiography_

 

 

-PROLOGUE-

Fire licked up the side of the stone walls, reaching with greedy fingers of flame for more food to devour in its total conquest for power. Heat flared out painfully, singing hair and cloth and skin, melting everything down in its path.

“Abe!” the scream tore from her throat, terrified green eyes squinting through crackling flames and thick smoke for any signs of life. It was a struggle for her to move anywhere except forwards towards the unknown, skirting passed flaming debris and what she had early on discovered to be charred bodies. The fires continued to burn around her, licking high up in to the air above her and flashing painfully hot against the exposed skin of her arms and stomach. Her lungs burned from the smoke she had already inhaled, and the cloth of her shirt pressed against her mouth did little to stop the coughs that ripped through her chest.

Continuing forward with the sole purpose of finding a way out from the flames, she stumbled over rubble that had been hidden by smoke and flame, crashing to her knees. It felt like a death knell, the energy seeping out of her as she stared around her, fire reaching towards her with menacing fingers, waiting anxiously to snatch her up and snuff out her life. Breath heavy, she closed her eyes in resignation, only to open them again in resignation, the green orbs flickering quickly to the skies above her before looking away.

Swirling clouds of purple and green and black boiled in the heavens above her head, the funnel inverted and whirling continuously as lighting flashed and cracked. Comets or balls of emerald coloured flame erupted from the centre every few seconds, great explosions of thunder echoing through her body like she was in the middle of a storm.

 _Might as well be_ , she thought sardonically, swallowing the dread and fear – fear that even overshadowed what she knew was her certain death – that was curdling in the very pit of her stomach.

Another crack of lighting lit up the area around her, the white-green flash illuminating a crack in the stone wall a little to her right. She crawled on her hands and knees, she squeezed through the gap and collapsed on to her stomach, letting the burning coughs that had been searing her throat escape.

Dragging in a ragged breath as she tried to control her bodies reaction, she blinked through bleary eyes, tears stinging her eyeslids and coursing down her cheeks. She had somehow ended up in a dark… room or what she guessed to be a room, the shadows a testament to the fact that it had escaped the flames for now. Light from the crack in the wall behind her dance on the floor in sinister shapes, playing tricks with her mind and eyes.

Dimly, another crack of thunder split the air, the wall raining down ash and soot on her head. Almost at the same time, she screamed out, her hands clutching at her chest. Pain lanced throughout her body, originating from her chest and spreading to engulf all of her senses. She had no idea how long she laid there in the dirt, her mind writhing in pain just as her body contorted itself to try an alleviate the agony, but when it had finally subsided to a dull ache, she found herself flat on her back with a familiar face looking down at her.

“Avery!”

With little thought to her state of being, she flung herself upwards, her arms wrapping themselves around her brothers neck and refusing to let go. “Abe!” she breathed, and tears started to choke her throat for an entirely different reason. “What’s going on?” she croaked, pulling back slightly and looking in to eyes that often stared back at her from a mirror.

“I dunno,” he said honestly, and started to help her stand up, “One second we were settling in to-”

A deafening roar echoed throughout the space they were in and the two turned to face the gap in which Avery had just crawled through. Something that could only originate from a horror story  peered at them through the gap, large, bulbous eyes glinting blackly at them from a face that would haunt the two of them for the rest of their lives.

Screaming in terror, Avery pushed away from the gap and scrambled behind Abe, using him as a shiled as what ever it was started to push its way inside. “What the hell!” she screamed, watching in rapped trepidation as long, spindly legs appeared in the gap and stretch out towards them.

“Forget about that!” Abe yelled out above the noise of the creatures shrieks and Avery’s cries, “Let’s get out of here!”. Grabbing Avery by the hand, he dragged her behind him, shooting passed the door that he had come in through and outside of what Avery now knew was a stone hut.

Together they raced down the dirt path way between stone buildings, the flames only now reaching the area in which they had left. Bursting out from the small path between the last of the stone huts, the appeared in what Avery could only describe as some sort of courtyard. Three of the four sides were blocked off by walls of roaring flame, leaving the last space as their only means of escape in the form of a flight of stairs.

“This way!” Avery yelled, jogging over to the steps and looking to Abe. “Quickly!” she turned and looked up at the long flight of stairs above them, noting that there was something at the top that she couldn’t see from where she stood. Turning back around quickly, Avery’s eyes grew wide as she noticed the creature that had tried to get in to the room not minutes earlier had reappeared, and had also brought friends. “Spiders!” she screamed, and started running up the stairs, ignoring the pain that rippled through her body as she tore up the steps to what she hoped was salvation. Behind her Abe was following closely, only glancing behind his shoulders once to see that the creatures – that were indeed spiders – were catching up to them.

As they neared the top, Avery noticed that what she had first thought of was nothing but a light, was in fact a woman glowing in gold. She couldn’t see her face, but from what she could make out, the figure was almost beckoning them, pleading for them to hurry.

The problem was, the closer they got to the top, the narrower and steeper the stairs became. Slipping, Avery bumped in to Abe, knocking him down several steps and that much closer to the spiders as they scuttled towards them. Gasping as the fear tried to choke her, Avery pushed against Abe, swallowing the sob that wanted so badly to escape her throat. Together, they pushed on wards, struggling to reach the glowing lady who looked even more anxious than she had before.

Wrapping her arms around Abe’s waist, Avery clung to him, feeling the last of her energy leave her as Abe threw them both forward, his arm outstretched to reach towards the lady.

They were less than a feet apart when a mark on Abe’s hand glowed an eerie green and exploded outwards. Avery screamed and buried her head in his shoulders as the light encompassed them both and the feeling of falling filled her guts to the point where she thought she would be sick.

Suddenly, their feet hit solid ground again and they both stumbled. Her hold on Abe breaking, Avery crashed to her knees next to Abe as her collapsed on to his front, his face eating the dirt beneath him. If she herself wasn’t so tired, she would have laughed at him, but the last coherant thought before she joined him in slumber was why were there people in fancy dress point very sharp objects in their directions.


	2. Chapter 1: the Scar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Now that's all settled," Avery started, sinking back to sit down on the covers of the bed and turning her gaze to all in the room before her, "can someone please tell me where the Hell we are, and why in Gods name are you wearing those ridiculous clothes?".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written on my iPad in transit. Un-beta read and editing was killing me. Enjoy!!

CHAPTER 1: the Scar

There was an incessant buzz that seemed to fade and grow stronger in time with her throbbing headache, pulling Avery from the dreamless sleep she had been in. Groaning, she cracked open an eye, realising with a start that she was laying on her back and staring up at a ceiling that she had never seen before.

Giving out a startled yelp, she rolled on to her side, only to freeze at the action when her hands tugged almost painfully together. Glancing down, her eyes widened at the sight of her hands bound together in front of her by a thick rope, the roughness of the twine scratching uncomfortably against her wrists. Feeling panic slowly start to rise as only more questions jumped to the fore of her mind, she laid back down, closing her eyes tightly as she focused on calming her breathing. If she could concentrate on stopping the panic attack that she could feel forming, then she could focus and think of a way to start answering her questions.

For how long she lay on the damp, stone floor, she had no idea, but slowly she got her breathing under control, the anxiety and panic fading to manageable levels. When she opened her eyes again, they were filled with a determination for answers, blazing green jewels that were known to strike fear in to the hearts of men. 

"First things first," she murmured to herself, raising her hands above her face and squinting through the gloom to study the way in which the ropes had been twined around her wrists. She noticed that whoever had tied them together was nothing short of proficient, multiple knots and weaves used to make sure that there was no escaping. She huffed a breath when she realised that the little Girl Scout training that she had done as a child would be of little to no help.

Resigned to the fact that she would have to live with her hands tied - quite literally - together until she found something to cut them off with, or someone would be kind enough to untie her, she struggled to sit up, grimacing when she used muscles she hadn't used in a while protested the movements. Finally, she managed to roll herself on to her knees and she was able to see the room that she had woken up in.

Only to realise it wasn't a room pre se, but rather what she could only describe to be some sort of dungeon; it seemed that watching all those movies based in medieval times counted for something.

Peering through the cold, iron bars of her cell, she could see a large, open space directly in front of her, square in shape with pillars in each corner and burning braziers of flame shedding the only source of light in the room. On the other side of this space there was an opening, a doorway, that lead to somewhere beyond where she could see, but flanking the sides of the door way were wooden objects that instantly sent a shudder down her spine. She didn't know the names for the devices, but she knew that it wouldn't take a historian to tell her that they were instruments of torture, or incarceration. Grimacing at the thought, she continued with her analysis of the room, counting serval other cells - all of them empty and devoid of life - and a couple of crates placed at odd intervals in the room. The fact that there were no other people in the room had her worried, especially because she would have guessed that there should have been at least a guard of some sort stationed in the room with her.

Deciding that there was nothing else to do except sit and wait. Although she was not an impatient person to begin with, Avery hated to wait when she had absolutely nothing to occupy herself with. She would even go so far as to bang a metal mug or plate or something across the bars just for something to do. 

Settling back against the bars, she stared at the fire-light playing across the floor in her cell, her thoughts drifting to memories and questions as to how exactly she had gotten in to the mess that she found herself in. 

The last thing that she remembered before waking up was burning and flames. The crackle and roar and heat and the sense of wrongness would have been almost unbearable if the not for the adrenalin pumping through her veins and the presence of Abe.

"Abe!" She breathed, her eyes flying open wide as she struggled to her feet.

If she was here, then where was her brother?

The panic was rising again, and she wasn't sure she could control it this time, her breath coming out in little pants while her chest started to feel tight and achy. Wildly, she looked through the bars, blinking away the tears that were forming in her eyes, hoping that Abe was somewhere down the gloom of the doorway and not dead or worse.

A sharp pain started in her chest, one that she had never felt in the midst of a panic attack and it forced the breath from her lungs. Gasping, she clutched the bars and sunk to her knees, letting out a scream when the pain seemed to crescendo alarmingly quickly, a roar building up in her ears before seemed to explode from her chest, a wave of muted green light expanding from her body to slowly dissipate in to the air around her.

Energy spent, she collapsed on to her side, blinking bleary eyes through the bars, noting fuzzily that a pair of boots had appeared on the other side of her cell. Rolling her head up took far too much energy that she didn't have, and the last thing that she remembered before darkness engulfed her once more, were a pair of amber brown eyes surrounded by tight, blonde curls.

~*~*~

Rough hands were shaking her awake, loud voices ringing in her ears that made the pounding headache she felt even worse. Lashes fluttering against her cheeks, she slowly grimaced, wincing when the light sent nothing but white hot knives of pain stabbing in to her too sensitive brain.

"Go 'way," she mumbled unhappily, nausea rolling in her stomach as she was shifted against a warm chest. 

The loud voices that she had heard before, had stopped, the silence unsettling as she slowly came back to her senses.

"Oh thank god," she heard whispered against her temple, and the familiarity of the voice had her eyes snapping wide open and the pain all but forgotten.

Without saying a word, Avery threw herself upwards, arms latching on tightly around her brothers neck as he stumbled under her sudden assault, belatedly realising that her hands were once again free. "You're alive!" She breathed, feeling the tears start to build up in the corners of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Squeezing his neck tighter, she let him go, holding him at arms length and drinking in his face.

Almost like staring in a mirror, Abe was the male version of herself in both looks and nature. They shared similar facial features: her round and curved, to sharp and angular. His face was long and angular, a bump on the bridge of his nose revealed that he had broken it in the past. She, on the other hand was all soft curves, and whereas he was tall, she was half a foot shorter than him at five foot five. Both their hair was a deep chocolate brown, their eyes a green-gold colour that they had inherited from their fathers side of the family... Those were where their physical similarities ended though. By being so tall, her brother was willowy, with a build like a professional swimmer and muscles to boot, where as she had their mothers hour glass figure: long torso, and short legs. 

Staring at him now, she noticed quite alarmingly that he looked changed, different. There was a darkness to his eyes that she had never seen before, something that sent a shiver of fear down her spine. "Abe?" She asked him, the question clear in her voice.

A smile broke out on his face, pulling his mouth up in to a facsimile of what she was used to, and doing nothing to hide the new darkness in his eyes. "You have no idea how glad I am that you're awake."

Blinking, she frowned, wondering if what she had seen before - the flames, the broken sky, the dungeon - had been nothing but a dream. But as she looked passed his shoulder, took in the wooden beams that criss crossed the ceiling to the roaring fire in the hearth, she knew that she was still stuck in her new weird, wonderland. "What do you mean?" She finally asked, pushing herself away and sitting up in the bed that felt like such a nice change to a cold, damp floor. 

Abe looked over his shoulder to several people behind him, only now catching her attention. Following his gaze , Avery counted several people crowded at the other end of the room, three women and three men... Or two men and a midget. Puzzled, she stared at them, taking in their appearance, noting that they all wore strange clothing and from the looks of it, some kind of weaponry. "What's going on?" She whispered, looking back to his face when he turned back to look at her. 

There was a weary grin on his face, and he pulled back, rubbing his hands over his face in a show of the stress that he was feeling. "You wouldn't believe me if I tried, Avery."

Glancing between Abe and the people who had started to move closer, a frown settled firmly in to place, her confusion slowly turning into anger at being kept in the dark. She knew from experience that when her brother rubbed his face, it was when he was stressed out, a tell that he had had since childhood. She was always the better liar of the two. "Try me, Aberthol."

Seeing his resulting wince at using his true name, Avery settled back against the pillows, wincing slightly when a strange pull in her chest made her gasp slightly. Rubbing the skin above her heart, she gave him a stern look, waiting for him to start explaining everything.

Except it wasn't Abe who spoke, but the tall man who was holding the long staff, keen eyes seeming to look straight in to her soul. "It is as I feared," he said plainly, turning to face the second man to his left. 

Looking at him now, Avery was startled to recognise amber-brown eyes and tight curls. "I know you, don't I?" She blurted out catching the attention of everyone in the room. Refusing to blush, she stared the man down, watching as a small smirk came to his face, pulling on the scar on his lip. 

"I was in the dungeons when you fell unconscious, yes," he replied, shifting on his feet when she refused to look away. 

Silence fell in the room, and Avery shifted uncomfortably, her eyes jumping from one man to the next. Deciding to ignore the blondes admission, she instead focused on the bald man, her eyes picking out his unusually pointed ears. Biting her tongue to ask him about them, she swallowed the obviously insensitive question and focused on what he had said before. "Is this about me?" She finally asked whipping her head around when she heard Abe curse next to her.

"Commander, my original diagnoses of the lady is correct: she shares the Mark with her brother." The bald man said, eyes turning back to Avery.

"But then where is her Mark?" An accented feminine voice all but demanded, and the dark haired woman stormed to the front to stand at the side of her bed, reaching armoured fingers down to snatch Avery's hands up turn them over. 

Startled, Avery tried pulling her hands back, whimpering when the woman's fingers clamped down on her sore wrists and kept her in place. "Let me go!"

"Cassandra!" Abe yelled jumping to his feet and tugging the woman away from her, "That's enough!"

Bringing her arms close to her chest, Avery stared at the woman like she had grown a second head. "What the hell is going on!" She yelled, frustration evident in her voice.

"My apologies, Lady Trevelyan," another voice answered her this one coming from a dark skinned woman wearing gold and navy coloured clothing. "We are as much confused by the situation as you undoubtably are."

"And yet I get the feeling that you still know more than I do," Avery couldn't help but retort acerbically, rolling her eyes at her.

"Oh, I like her," it was the dwarf that spoke this time, leaning with his arms crossed against the open doorway to the cabin. He had the same broken nose as Abe, but unlike her brothers, his didn't look to have been fixed properly, resulting in a bump and scarring.

Several voice started at once suddenly, and the noise seemed to amplify the pain in both her head and her chest. Beside her, Abe had taken his place again on the bed, cradling his hand in his lap and rubbing it as if to ease an ache. A green glow caught her attention, originating from the palm that he was rubbing, and she leant forward, snatching his hand up as she examined it in her hands.

Wide eyed, she stared at the glowing scar on his hand, pulsing in time with their shared heart beat. It was a weak glow at first, pulsing slowly, before it flared brightly at the exactly same time her chest constricted and she dropped his hand like a hot coal to clutch at her chest. Writhing, she curled up in the bed, tears of pain coursing down her cheeks while she vaguely heard people yelling and cursing around her.

Cool fingers touched her heated brow, and a soothing aura seeped through the skin, settling in to her bones and helping ease the pain, making it easier to breath. Sight swimming in tears, she was able to notice that the fingers belonged to the man with the pointed ears, his eyes awash with concern that she wasn't used to receiving from people that weren't her brother. "What...?" She croaked, belatedly realising that she had been screaming.

Several faces peered down at her, all of them with the same level of concern that the mystery man had displayed. The woman named Cassandra was even one of them.

"Commander, I believe that the two are linked by the scar, as was evident by that last episode," the pointy-eared man said, moving his fingers from her brow. A moan of protest slipped passed her lips almost embarrassingly, but she didn't have the energy to care.

"You haven't told me why she feels the pain more than I do," Abe said calmly, the fury heard in his voice as he climbed back up from the floor, taking her hands in his own and helping her struggle to sit up in the bed.

"What?" Avery snapped, feeling like she was doing nothing but repeat herself. What on earth was going on?

The pointy-eared man bowed his head as he stood to his full height, including his head in what she could only describe as pity. "My apologies, Lord Trevelyan, but it was something that I had discussed with Commander Culled before the Lady awoke."

"Well if someone would like to fill me in on what's going on, that would be lovely," Avery couldn't help but say sarcastically, pushing Abe away and struggling to get out of bed. Abe went to help her but feeling annoyed at his refusal to tell her what was going on, she decided to ignore his outstretched arms and accept the help - however grudgingly she took it - from Cassandra.

Standing up straight on shaking legs, Avery nodded her head in thanks and focused on standing up by herself, taking a deep breath and straightening her back, letting her gaze dance from one face to the next. She hoped her steely gaze would be enough to get people to start talking, knowing from experience that she would get at least one person to reveal what she wanted eventually.

Once again, it was the pointy-eared man who answered, a small smile playing on his lips when he inclined his head towards her. "Very well, Lady Trevelyan," he answered, his voice carry a no nonsense kind of attitude, "as I had said before, you share the same Mark as your brother." The look of confusion must have been more obvious than she had intended, and the man reached over to her brother and lifted his hand to reveal the glowing scar on his palm to her face. 

Swallowing passed the lump that sprang to her her throat, Avery stared at the green-white glowing mark, feeling nothing but anxiety threaten to take over her body. She looked from Abe, saw the dark look cross his eyes, as if he were seeing something that no one else saw, and then she looked at the man, searching his face for any hint of a clue. "What do you mean by that? What Mark do we share? I don't have that on my hands, so obviously you're wrong." She knew that what she had said was bordering on rude, but the weight of the passed... However long was starting to weigh her down.

Just where were they and what was happening?

"You Mark cannot be seen by the naked eye, but you do have one," the man continued, disregarding her scathing tone, "and I believe it to be in a far more delicate place than that of your brothers."

Frowning, she rubbed at her chest unconsciously, eyes jumping from face to face around the room once again. They didn't say anything to her, choosing to remain silent in the face of what she believed to be quiet a large revelation looming just on the horizon. Beside her, Abe was looking at her with dawning horror on his face, and she could feel the blood drain from her face as the pieces started to fall together. "The pain in my chest?" She whispered, praying that she was wrong.

"Your heart, to be precise," the man replied, a look of pity painting his features.

"How?" Abe exploded rage colouring his motions as he pushed himself away from her and started to lace. "Why does this stupid thing attach itself to my hand, only for my sister to have it in her heart?" 

"How is that even possible?" A different voice asked, this one coming from the final figure who wore a hood over red hair. 

"What is more important is that we need to focus on closing the Rift. We have two people that can do it, let us get to work." Cassandra said sternly, the glint in her eyes bordering on madness.

"You saw me, Cass! I could barely stand after I closed that one rift, and it almost knocked me out. From what Solas has hypothesised, my sisters pain is increased two fold because, from what we now know, the Mark is in her heart!"

"Jeez, don't have to talk about me like I'm not here or something," Avery muttered sarcastically, seeing the dwarf man smirk in her direction. She sent him a small smile, still reeling from the revelation that the pain she had been feeling was much more than her anxiety and probably some really bad heart burn.

The blond man moved forwards, holding up gloved hands in a gesture to calm down both Abe and Cassandra. "We can't be too hasty, Seeker Pentaghast," he said sternly, and Avery was reminded of a general in an army, commanding his soldiers to war. "We know very little about The Lord and Lady Trevelyan other than the fact they are related to the Barr Trevelyan in the Free Marches. We need to tread carefully here, and proceed from there when we have more information."

Nodding her head stiffly, Cassandra turned her nose up at Abe and Avery couldn't help but giggle at the motion, grinning widely when Abe turned to glower at her.

Knowing that the situation had calmed down for now, Avery knew that it wouldn't last. There were still so many questions that she had, answers that refused to be dealt with until they were spoken aloud... And she had just about had it up to here with it all.

"Now that's all settled," Avery started, sinking back to sit down on the covers of the bed and turning her gaze to all in the room before her, "can someone please tell me where the Hell we are, and why in Gods name are you wearing those ridiculous clothes?".


End file.
